Latest from A Closer Look: Internal Investigations

This article originally appeared in The Legal Intelligencer on January 9, 2019.
The Pennsylvania Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law (UTPCPL), 73 P.S. Section 201-1 et seq., and the Administrative Code of 1929, specifically 71 P.S. Section 307-3, vest the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General (OAG) with the power to investigate “unfair methods of competition” and “unfair or deceptive acts or practices” by companies doing business in Pennsylvania. The statutory definition of these phrases…

As expected, the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) recently released proposed Title IX regulations, specifically concerning sexual harassment, including sexual assault. This is significant because the DOE has never addressed these issues through regulation. In the past, guidance has only been available through informal resources, such as the 2011 Dear Colleague Letter and the 2014 Guidance/Q&A. As discussed in previous blog posts, these new regulations, if adopted, would constitute a substantial departure from prior…

I’m a management-side employment lawyer. It’s my job to go to court and defend employers and executives accused of all different types of misconduct, including sexual harassment. Over the last 20 years, I have seen it all. Some of my cases involve relatively tame allegations, like telling dirty jokes around the watercooler. And I have also been involved with cases involving extremely serious accusations, including indecent exposure, unwanted touching, and sexual assault. I spent a…

The recent proliferation of news stories about transgender students facing discrimination has brought an increased focus on universities and colleges claiming religious-based exemptions to excuse their compliance from Title IX as it applies to transgender students. …

In litigation, claims are subject to statutes of limitations. Because the passage of time can affect such things as witness memory and evidence preservation, states pass statutes of limitations providing that claims cannot be brought after the expiration of a certain number of years after a claim arises. While the statutes of limitations vary from state to state and from claim to claim, limitation periods of one, two, or three years are common. Although there…

This article originally appeared in The Legal Intelligencer on August 01, 2017
IN-HOUSE COUNSEL
I have never met an attorney who did not believe that he was perfectly capable of drafting legislation. This confidence may come from a mastery of the case law governing the subject matter of the ­proposed legislation. Or perhaps it derives from the attorney’s previous struggles with the ambiguities of a statutory scheme in the course of representing a client. Maybe…

As we suggested in our February 2017 blog post, the future of Title IX application in our institutions is in flux. The Department of Education Office for Civil Rights rescinded the Obama era 2011 Dear Colleague Letter and 2014 Guidance on September 22, 2017. These guidelines placed certain procedural requirements on investigations of sexual misconduct allegations conducted by postsecondary institutions receiving federal funding. The Department of Education (“DOE”) stated that the policy requirements in…

This article originally appeared in The Legal Intelligencer on April 25, 2017
IN-HOUSE COUNSEL
Since taking office on Jan. 20, President Donald Trump has ­issued two executive orders designed to implement what his chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon has described as “deconstruction of the administrative state.” While ­”deconstruction” is perhaps too strong a word for what the administration has proposed thus far, corporate counsel would be well advised to keep abreast of the developments of the…

This article originally appeared in The Legal Intelligencer on February 21, 2017
IN-HOUSE COUNSEL
Last fall, the U.S. Sentencing Commission published the results of its study on the federal ­prosecution of corporations and other organizational ­offenders. The results of that study, based on sentencing data for the calendar year 2015, says much about the types of organizations and offenses that are most likely at risk for federal prosecution and how corporate counsel can reduce the…

This article originally appeared in Corporate Counsel on January 1, 2017.
Much has been written over the last sixteen months interpreting the shift in U.S. Justice Department policy placing greater emphasis on individual accountability for corporate wrongdoing in federal civil and criminal enforcement proceedings. Apparently not all of it was accurate. In what has become known as the “Yates Memo” issued on September 9, 2015, U.S. Deputy Attorney General Sally Quillian Yates outlined six steps…